


heavy velvet, embroidered in gold

by Many Dragons (medeadea)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Flashbacks, Fluff, Introspection, it's so fluffy I'm gonna die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medeadea/pseuds/Many%20Dragons
Summary: the surprising rediscovery of a person changedor how Leliana finds Morrigan softer than she ever was and maybe herself too





	heavy velvet, embroidered in gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EverestV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverestV/gifts).



> Dear Everest V,  
> my little creation for you has brought me much joy, I hope you will like it as well!
> 
> Thanks go to my lovely F for brainstorming and streamlining!  
> (Title taken of course from the infamous 'Let's go shopping together' banter in DAO)

She has a  _ son. _

Or maybe that’s not quite right. Morrigan is a mother.  _ Morrigan. A mother. _

Leliana isn’t used to surprises anymore, at least not this kind. She knows that each turn makes the world a little bit worse, so everything some ancient evil throws at her is old news. But this? Someone she thought she knew being so much more?

It takes the breath right out of her lungs.

She’d had her eyes on Morrigan at Celene’s court, of course, observed her sudden appearance at Celene’s side with mistrust just like everyone else. The mantle of mystery that surrounded her was new, but then so was the beautiful and expensive dress. One could acquire a modicum of conduct in seven years, even a person as brash and candid as Morrigan was.

But this? The way she waltzes into Skyhold with a son at her hand, absorbed in his presence and entirely uncaring for everybody else? It’s a gross breach in Leliana’s expectations and it unbalances her so much she needs to turn around and retreat to her tower.

 

* * *

 

They walked so much, back then, though it felt like time was running a step ahead always, never to be caught up on. Through forests and over hills, under mountains and inside cities, through the mist of autumn, the frost of winter and the rains of spring.

There was wind stroking fields of wheat, still green, awns soft, their rustle shushing the little group in waves far away from any ocean. Above, the sky so blue it was almost white.

A breeze picked up as they climbed a fence, that small, tidy border there to confine the uniformity of grain, or maybe, probably, the cattle across in a wild meadow of grasses and poppy. Leliana thought it carried the scent of imminent rain, and indeed greying clouds raced across the horizon, driven by the invisible mighty currents of air.

She disrupted the silence that had endured between her companions for almost the entire day.

“It will rain before we reach that chestnut over there, I suggest we take shelter under our rainskins and wait until it passes.”

It sounded hollow into the quiet at first, but Aeducan and Alistair did follow her example and rummaged about in their knapsacks for rain protection. Sten and Oghren either ignored the comment or had not heard it.

Morrigan huffed in her typical dismissive manner, yet refrained from rolling her eyes.

“‘Tis not going to rain for another while, we have plenty of time to search for shelter until it sets in for good. Or do we wish to continue during a storm?”

As always, she argued. Leliana wondered if there was ever a time in Morrigan’s life where she would not contradict whichever opinion someone that was not her own self held.

Like a bramble Morrigan’s personality sprawled, thorns on her limbs that made one hesitant to reach for the glittering sweet fruits of her charm. Still, like a bramble, they clung to you should you accidentally brush too close, followed each move until you plucked the thorns of her temper out forcefully.

Leliana didn’t like to make a sport of it, the persistent back and forth between them, but she was fascinated, had been from the first moment. Yes, Morrigan was beautiful and brazen and everything enticing she could think of, but there was a wall around her so high it would darken the skies. Crossing that seemed daunting from each angle.

 

* * *

 

She is caught out, exposed and can’t even pretend to care about it.

Morrigan has been sitting with Kieran right across from her perch and it’s distracting in the most unsettling manner.

Buried behind a desk that is covered in books from each corner of their sparse library, Morrigan teaches her son some inexplicable intricacies of magic. Never has she sounded as patient and gentle while in Leliana’s presence, so it’s no surprise that Leliana is transfixed, staring, found.

Yet it is hours later that Morrigan confronts her, after having finished the lesson with Kieran and reshelved each of the books to their respective places.

“So, are you satisfied with the spectacle? Was my show of motherhood convincing enough for you to approve of? Or have I raised your ire in some way that you must stare at me so?”

Like an oyster that has clamped shut, she glowers, expecting the worst. It’s so stunning that Leliana takes too long, opens and closes her mouth twice before croaking an answer. She hopes none of her runners saw her flounder.

“No! O-of course you’re doing well, that’s not why I was watching at all. I just– You’re so different now. From how I remember, I mean.”

Morrigan lifts a brow but does relax. It seems Leliana is not the only one reminded of the past.

They do accomplish a chat that could almost be called amiable, so long as one considers that the topic of Kieran is taboo and the rest of their shared subjects are reason to, if not panic, then at least worry a great deal.

No matter the years that passed, Morrigan is as beautiful as she ever was, maybe more so. And even if she refuses any talk about her son, he has changed her immeasurably. Close up the lines of her face are soft, her hands careful and every word placed well. It’s no wonder she did well at Celene’s court like this, having come to know herself truly.

Facing it isn’t easy, in Leliana’s own state of unrest. She never had the time to mourn her loss since the Conclave and it has not left her, surely to be noticed by Morrigan’s watchful topaz eyes. Yet it seems easier in some way, to have your weakness recognised by someone who knew you when you were young and exactly as foolish as you still are.

A warmth spreads in her chest, tasting of the pears they picked while they hiked through fields, avoiding highwaymen away from dusty trails and recognition. Up here on the drafty mountains it helps, grants reprieve, just for an instant but almost enough.

 

* * *

 

Of course they wound up drenched to the bone as the truth lay neither here nor there. It was not the sudden and short-lived shower Leliana had expected, and not the slow climactic pour Morrigan had predicted, but a slowly approaching, ever improbable  _ deluge _ that ran through the folds in their rainskins as the Grey Wardens and their companions searched for shelter and nearly soaked the insides of their sturdiest tents.

Morrigan would share a tent under duress, at some point in their journey not even then, but now… Now here she sat, mute, blood red linens clinging to the pebbled skin of her arms, not even bothering to turn away from Leliana’s unsubtle glance.

“It’s not so bad, maybe. After all a ‘ _ Bloomingtide shower brings about beauty of the flower. _ ’”

Daring perhaps, to flirt when one’s partner was quite obviously miserable and irritated, but Leliana knew much about ventures and their gains from experience. Indeed, Morrigan did nothing worse than shrug disapprovingly.

“Would you be so kind as to quell your inane superstitions for once. It is rain no matter which month of the year. It makes you wet.”

Alright then. Time for plaintext.

“Of course. You’re just saying that because you’re already as beautiful as one can be. The rest of us however…”

It paid off. Gloriously indeed because Morrigan would not, could not back down from a challenge a blunt as this.

The naked skin under Leliana’s hands stayed damp and goose pimpled only for the shortest amount of time, wet clothes forgotten in a corner of their tent and noises drowned out by the patter on the cover of their shared tent.

She’d missed this, since leaving Orlais, surrounded by sisters under oath, and though Leliana supposed it should feel hollow, it did not. Instead its exhilarating effort to keep up, compete for triumph, filled her with the sweetest sense of victory, content.

 

* * *

 

A hailstorm howls outside and for the hundredth time Leliana wonders how or why anyone ever built such an enormous castle in this wretched part of the Frostback Mountains.

But she is inside, cozy and warm, in her bed for once. Soon she will have to leave for the joys of duty as her runners will come looking.

“Not yet.”

The dark crown of her bedmate’s head turns, a warm nose breathes against her shoulder and stills again.

She hums, softly brushes a strand of hair behind Morrigan’s ear and admires the particulars of her hairline. The wispy soft hair, pitch black, thin brows, so expressive, little crinkles next to her eyes, soft jawline. Leliana is allowed to study it all, for the first time, as extensively as she has wanted to for a decade now.

Sometimes people are foolish, blind to their desires until those finally turn into satisfaction.

The satisfaction of knowing somebody to the core, and being known utterly in return, and that fulfillment is the sweetest fruit of all.


End file.
